Free Alien Proliferation by Gini Koch Page B

contractions.
    Reader, Gower, and Christopher all arrived. They were, to a man, in the nighttime fatigues. A-Cs lived for clothing conformity. Reader and I had no idea why; we’d just learned to accept it, sometimes unwillingly.
    “Hi, guys. Someone want to explain to Jeff that I don’t want to have the baby on the bed, as charmingly old-fashioned as that might sound?”
    “Jeff, get off the bed so we can get Kitty onto the gurney.” Christopher sounded tired. He looked tired, too. He was smaller than Jeff, wiry and muscled versus ripped, though he had the great abs, which I assumed ran in the family. His hair was light brown and straight, though right now it was pretty messy. Normally his eyes were green, but they were so bloodshot I’d have gone with red if I didn’t know him. I would have worried, but another contraction hit, and I had to focus on that as opposed to why Christopher looked so much more exhausted than Jeff.
    “She’s in labor!”
    “Yes, we’ve picked that up. Gladys alerting us was also a tip-off.” Reader shook his head. “Let her go, man.”
    “No, and I don’t want anyone talking about her dying in labor again!”
    “Jeff, you’re the one who brought it up.” I shot a “help me” look to Gower. He was Jeff’s size, ebony skin, bald, and, just like every other A-C on Earth, gorgeous. He was also normally pretty calm, and usually a calming influence on Jeff.
    Gower walked over, shook his head, moved Jeff’s arm off me, picked me up and put me on the gurney. “How’re you doing, Kitty?”
    “So much better now. OW! Well, other than that contractions hurt.”
    Tito had been looking at his watch. “If I use when you were shouting, your contractions aren’t regular yet. Let’s get her upstairs. Oh, and someone help Jeff, he looks like he’s going to pass out, and I need to pay attention to Kitty.”
    Reader took one end of the gurney, Tito took the other, and they pushed me through the Lair and to the elevators. “I knew I should have taken over the baby prep planning like I did your wedding,” Reader said as we waited for the elevator.
    “The baby wasn’t due for another couple of weeks.”
    “They come when they want to,” Tito said, as he checked my pulse.
    “Yeah, picking that up, oh Sage One.”
    Reader sighed. “You don’t have a crib. You don’t have a stroller. You don’t have a room for the baby.”
    “James, enough stress going on right now.”
    “Bassinet for the first couple of months, anyway,” Tito said. “I want the baby right by her mother.” He closed his eyes. “I mean its mother.”
    “We already figured it was a girl, Tito, no worries.”
    “Oh, good. I thought that was some huge A-C thing.”
    “It is,” Reader said as we all got into the elevator, Jeff being held up by Christopher and Gower. “But certain things have become obvious, including the baby’s sex.”
    Tito looked at me. “That weird knocking was the baby?”
    “Damn, you hire well, Kitty,” Gower said. “Seriously, I think you hire better than I do, without any dream or memory reading talent.”
    “Flattered. I’d take your job if you’d take the labor pains.”
    “Passing on that offer.”
    “Baby, are you okay?” Jeff sounded freaked.
    I put my hand out, and he grabbed it. “I’m okay. Just stay with me, do what Tito says, when he says it, and stop being so scared. Women have been having babies for a long time—that’s how we’re all here.”
    “Jeff, can you handle the gurney?” Tito asked. I wondered if he’d lost his mind. Jeff didn’t look like he could handle a fork right now.
    But the request helped. He took a deep breath, nodded. “Yeah.” His voice sounded normal again. Tito had been by my head, so Jeff moved there. “I have to let go of your hand, baby.”
    “That’s okay. I can still see you.” Out of the elevator, off to a medical bay. There were three Dazzlers there. I took the gorgeous for granted on them, since they were in the full